Fin vs History - Why is Russia so F*cked in the Head? | The Russian Revolution of 1917 (Part 1/5)
Episode Date: July 7, 2025Russia: are you alright mate ? The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Tr...uther and sign up to the Patreon https://www.patreon.com/fintaylor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Welcome back to Finn v. History.
As ever, I'm joined by Horatio Gould.
It's on the game.
Why you have to be made?
Today is the start of our biggest series yet.
It's your most annoying colleague's favourite thing.
It's the Russian revolution.
It is my favourite thing.
Yeah, no, I just think generally.
but yeah
it's your favourite thing
this is the long road
to Gary Stevenson
it's
it's that annoying guy
from uni
Gary Stevenson who's got
the worst drip of all time
maybe
yeah yeah
maybe one of the worst dress
bloke on TV
potentially
for a very rich man
famously rich
he dresses worse
than
I was the smartest guy
in the world
when I was born
that's what he says
I was number one
trader in the entire world
really with clothes like that really
also what I find funny about
my mates can't feed their kids
it's like you need to get some more friends I think
I think if you're this rich
and your friends still can't feed their kids
hey Gary elevate your circle
you know yeah that's one of the big things
about success you've got to elevate your circle
yeah why are you still hanging out with the povos
that can't feed their kids
you're the best trader in the world
in your own
look at how he sits as well
that Stephen Barlett interview
it's like a sort of snotty little school kid
Sorry, I've finished already.
Well, he has finished already
because he's the best trader in the world.
Exactly, he's completed it.
Done.
He's completed capitalism.
And now he wants to go and shout
at Christian Guru Murphy
about how his mates can't feed his kids.
Feed his kids?
Yes.
Well, they shouldn't be feeding your kids anyway, Gary.
Gary Stevenson starts here.
This is the start of a massive series
about Gary Stevenson.
This is the Russian Revolution.
It's probably the central event
you could argue it in 20th century history.
I'd say so.
Probably.
Probably.
I guess because what it leads to the Cold War,
a third of people live under communism.
Because you'd say like the beginning domino
of all of the shit that happens
in the 20th century is World War I, right?
Well, possibly, but then you think about
is it so many people came to power
that the who later is the final 20th century
because they were, people were scared
of the Russian Revolution.
People were scared of Gary Stevenson
taking over.
So they elected, so they let Hitler have power
because they were like, well, I'd rather hang out,
I'd rather have a beer with Hitler than this come.
They literally found like Nick Griffin
upside down in a barrel of beer and said let's get him in power to stop this guy this guy's insufferable
he won't stop going on about his kids and his people who can't feed their kids i'd rather have
hitler who at least seems like a laugh by far the biggest topic we've done this is and it's
also an absolutely way too big way too big it's above our pay grade for sure and that's the first
time we've said that honestly we do not get imposter syndrome easy no the private school system really
does work bashes of posta syndrome's face
People would rather elect this guy in this country
than Jeremy Corbyn, generally.
That's how terrified people are.
You know, if Jeremy Corbyn is a virus,
Corbyn's supporters are a virus.
You know, this is patient zero.
Lenin and the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks.
Fuck me, Nick Griffin.
I mean, as an advocate for white supremacy,
he looks like him against it, right?
It looks like David Blunkett fucked a toad.
It's absolutely insane.
What's he doing now, Nick Griffin?
Yeah, exactly.
Do you know what? Nick Griffin of British racism is sort of like the Skype of British racism
in the way that he was an early adopter of the current form of it, right? Yes. He had a long
build up to it and now while it's popular, he's nowhere to be seen. Skype. Where has it gone?
Had like 15 years on Zoom. Lockdown came in. Didn't capitalise us all. Zoom came through.
Zoom is Farage. Yeah, Zoom is for, yes. And Nick Griffin is Skype. In 2017, Nick Griffin expressed a desire to emigrate to Hungary but was bam.
from the country shortly after.
That's so weird.
I guess it's because the racist is out of there, right?
But is Nick Griffin's so racist that the racists won't take it.
But he's a British nationalist.
I was declared bankrupt.
I guess he probably thinks that Britain's Pakistan now.
Yes, of course.
Maybe he's making those AI videos.
London's filled with shit.
But this is not about Nick Griffin.
This is about the Russian Revolution.
And Russian history in general is probably...
At all times, we should be just holding the idea.
that Nick Griffin, despite his ills, is better than all these guys.
That's what this country thinks.
Sure, sure.
But Russian history is probably my favorite history.
Yeah, what?
I love the Russian.
It's so, I guess they're so fucked up in such a thrilling way.
Yeah.
I've always had a, like I've had a Russian ex-girlfriend.
I've had a, I was seeing briefly another Russian girl.
I was quite disappointed with the Russian ex-girlfriend I had.
You used to mail all the brides.
Yes, exactly.
No, no, because, annoyingly, my Russian ex went to, like, NYU, was quite Americanized.
It was like a New York liberal, basically.
And I was more like, I'm not here for this experience.
It's like going to Italy and eating ramen.
Do you know what I mean?
Yes.
I'm here for pasta.
She was very pro-grey gay rights.
She thought that gender roles were kind of, like, you know, should not be so rigid.
Sorry, Charlie's got up the big.
as Russian, the Russian baby.
This is Nadia.
Yeah.
So that's nearly eight kilos.
Is that bigger than Super Antonio
the Mexican baby
that you discovered last series?
I don't know.
Can you find out, please, Charlie.
Sorry, your Russian liberal ex-girlfriends.
Yeah, but I didn't get the experience
that I wanted from dating a Russian.
Yeah, because I think...
What you want is those kind of
regressive conservative beliefs
that kind of men should be men.
Yeah.
You know, then I met another Russian girl
who, you know, thinks that homosexuality
shouldn't be taught at school.
She thinks that Stalin was a great leader
You know, that's what you want.
That's what you want.
You want the experience.
Yeah, you do want the whole day.
You want the experience.
Yeah, you want to eat the local food.
Yeah, I don't think I would like to marry a Russian or a Soviet woman.
Yeah.
I would like a Soviet, you want a Soviet masseuse.
Right, right.
You want someone to beat the fuck out of you.
In a banier, to beat the shit out of you.
Yeah.
You don't want to like, you know, you wouldn't want to actually introduce them to people.
Well, my dad is about.
to marry a Russian, actually.
Well, this makes sense.
This all makes sense.
Exactly.
It all makes complete sense.
Nadia was three and a half pounds
heavier than Super Antonio.
Thank you, Charlie.
So in the...
Well, let's put the top-gear leaderboard
of massive babies.
Russia is currently in Topman and charge of Mexico.
My God, that's a big baby.
And she only ate potatoes,
noodles and tomatoes.
During the pregnancy.
Yeah.
Right.
There you go.
That's what created Nadia.
If we have any pregnant listeners,
which must be infantimal,
it's a minority within a minority,
It's pregnant women.
Well, isn't that the thing about playing Mozart in the womb?
Does that not make the baby smarter?
If you just play the red flag.
Or play this podcast?
You play this podcast if they're going to look like Nick Griffith.
They will come out with Down syndrome.
If you play this podcast to your child in the womb, they will come out.
A bit fruity.
And I guess this episode before, because we got so much revolution stuff to get through
and there's so much history, it's important to give as much context as we can.
really.
Yeah, why is Russia so
fuck?
Why is Russia so far?
If you're a therapist,
if you're, you know,
Gabon-Mate
and you're delving
into the trauma.
He's,
I'd love him to talk,
whisper me to sleep.
Yeah,
what would Gabba-Mate
say about you?
I don't know.
I think he'd say,
do you know what,
you're fine.
Because he finds the trauma
and everyone.
He's a little fucking,
he's a truffle pig,
a trauma-full pig.
I would break Gabon-Mate.
Would you?
He's a trauma pig.
You want to fuck your mum.
Yeah.
So we're going to try
and do that to Russia.
Or you think Gawamate would just say
Yeah, nothing.
Next.
He'd say, so, you ate 24 minutes of pies?
I went, yes.
And he went, how do you feel about that?
I went, I feel fine, I'll do it again.
You're right, okay.
Yeah, I'd love him to soothe me to sleep.
He's got a very soothing.
Yeah.
I'd love him to read me lullabies.
Yeah, very, he just got that kind of leathery intellectual fakes
where you trust him.
Lovely kind eyebrows.
Yeah.
Anyway, this is not about Gabo Matté.
This is about why, why, so what would Gabo Matte?
just find out about Russia?
Well, I guess a lot of when I'm talking about the prehistory of Russia
or the beginning of the Russian state,
the main source I am using is Putin.
Right.
Now, again, we should stress,
there's not a completely objective pocket.
We have a Putin's shill in the room.
I think, yeah, I went to,
I needed to find a lot of different sources.
The only one I really trust is Putin speaking to Tucker Carlson.
Okay.
So his view of Russian history.
But basically, going back, it's actually a Viking state, Russia.
which is a lot of good start.
Before you go,
before you go all the way back,
let's just place this for the dumb-dums.
Right.
Because we keep forgetting to do this,
and they do get annoyed.
Well, let's start with where Putin considers Russia's starts in 1826.
I'd like to place the Russian,
I think we should place the Russian Revolution.
Right.
But the Russian Revolution, which is what we're dealing with,
ultimately, 1917.
Now, this is, 1917 is after the Somme,
just the Battle of the Somme.
All right.
And it is before,
compare the Mirkad.com.
Yes.
Because ultimately that wouldn't make any sense because there's no market.
Yes.
They have insurance, but they would not.
But it's state, it's one insurance policy.
Right.
So it's, you know, price comparison sites aren't the thing in Soviet Russia.
No, they didn't really boom.
It's Compare thedictat.com.
Go compare.
Go compare what?
Yeah, go compare is a very pointless site in Soviet Russia.
Yeah.
There's no car insurance comparison sites.
There's none.
So that fun little sort of mere cat.
Yeah.
That's that's a, go on, Charlie.
They pulled those.
from the TV when
the Russian
Ukraine war kicked off
because of the accent
due to sort of sensitivity
about...
Why didn't they put a different
accent in the meerkat?
Hello, compare the meerkat.
Compare the America.com
Yeah, they shouldn't have made a raster.
Shouldn't make a raster.
A raster mea.
You've got Rasta mouse,
Rasta Miratat.
There's so many different accents
you could have done.
Yeah.
Compare de market.com.
If you spoke to us, we're experts.
Yeah, why haven't they got us in?
But anyway, that's...
So the Russian Revolution is 1917.
But Putin,
what does he see as the birth of his country?
He says basically a Viking prince called Rurik set up in 1826,
the Kievan Rus, right, which is where Kiev is.
And it was basically lots of Vikings trying to make money
would sail down from Scandinavia to Constantinople
to join the Varangian Guard.
Do you know what that is?
Of course I don't know what the Varangian Guard is.
No, I don't read science fiction.
I pay my mortgage on time.
I have two children.
The highlights of my weekend genuinely was getting a new Hoover.
this whole thing is the whole
I'm such a capitalist
that the idea of any of this
makes no sense to me
my highlight
the highlight of my weekend
buying a new Hoover
what was the new Hoover
it fucking slaps
what is it corded
I've gone back to corded
I've gone back to corded
corded is where it's at
you can't go wrong with cordings
this shirt is from cordings
cordons
corded hovers
they have more power
they do
and I
more reliable
more reliable
and I don't mind
having to deal with a cord
if it actually deals
with dust.
Yeah.
My house is completely, it's a, it's a feral.
Right.
I've basically living with vermin, essentially.
Two children and my wife, you know, is, she's shedding at this time of year.
She's on heat.
It's matted clumps of hair everywhere.
Anyway, that was the highlight on my weekend.
Buying a new Hoover, enjoying the fruits of capitalism, the entire, when you're saying
that Putin starts with Kiev being, is that why, is that, is that why the reason is the
genesis of the Russian identity?
yeah comes that he says they're inexplicitly linked to Kiev and the Ukraine is an idea formed by
even Stalin and Lenin actually right or like during the Soviet Union and that they're the same
peoples basically and that's his words that's his shit yeah yeah his words are my words so we're okay
so we are amplifying we I guess we're pro Putin currently is that what we are this whole series
is a justification for Putin's actions in Ukraine he's just one of my main sources for this
yeah okay fine good to know we need we need we need to start putting our sources so we're a proper history
podcast. We should footnote, yeah, with...
So, Vladimir Putin, any interview he's given
over the last 15 years, that's my main.
I mean, I guess what is interested about Putin
is it's more like when being
into history becomes a real red flag.
Yes. A lot of justification
of being into history or ignoring your family, reading
a history book, right? Or like, not speaking to women
because you're reading history. Is this important to know your history?
Yeah. Right? And that it's seen as generally
a good thing. I guess people like Putin,
it makes history quite a bad thing to be
into. Because a lot of the, literally
the reason why a lot of the problem
are happening in Russia, Ukraine, is because
he loves history so much. It's applied history
though, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Russia is
it's kind of, for
the Western, trying to understand the Russian
minds, this is a country that's
borders Europe and Asia.
It's sort of both and neither. And behind it
is this terrifying, endless forest
filled with kind of
like wolves and
kind of forest tribes, right? And basically
these Vikings, where the early
settlement set up was on the
fur and slave trade. Because there's
huge slave trade.
Yeah.
The word slave comes from Slav.
Of course.
So there's a lot of the Slavs were being traded.
There's a lot of white-on-white slavery at this time.
Disgusting.
Awful.
Oh, there's an abomination.
Yeah.
Then Prince Vladimir in 1988, who Putin has made a mass...
1988?
1980?
Yeah. It's quite recent.
Wow.
It's quite recent.
Just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, that's where Russia...
Yeah.
Who Putin has made a massive statue for this guy.
He basically made this Kievan-Rus Christian Orthodox
and made this new idea.
identity of a Slavic orthodox people, right?
Yeah, we should, we should, I think another thing to bring up here is that Russian
orthodoxy is a huge part in the Russian character.
Yes.
In the, I was trying to read into this last night because there's, I can't really think of
many things that I think about less than the Russian Orthodox Church.
Okay.
But it's just the bottom of my list at all times.
It's quite near the top for me.
Is it right?
Well, of course, is your dad having a Russian Orthodox wedding?
No, I don't actually know what it would be called.
Right.
I don't know if he's, I don't know if they're the most religious people.
Maylord Brides?
Yeah, I don't know what.
I think it's just a high five with the priest.
But if you're, if you're a sub, if you're like a kind of little, if you like getting told
what to do and smacked about, I think having a Russian spouse would be really exactly what
you want a Russian misuse to sort of, you want a, you know, a happy ending in Russia.
It's a sort of sad ending where they just peg you, I think.
This is a misunderstanding of the Russian woman, right?
They are firm and stubborn, but they want you to be a man.
So they're slapping you about to be more.
to slap them about.
The Russian woman is saying
if you don't start hitting me,
I'll hit you.
You better start smacking me about
or else I'm going to,
you know,
they wouldn't even deal with the cuck.
You have to be a man's man,
right?
Incredible.
What would you do if a girlfriend said
if you don't start hitting me,
I'm going to hit you?
But depends how scary they are.
Yeah,
but if you want to be hit,
if you want to be hit,
what do you do?
You let her punch you about.
Yeah, I guess so.
I mean,
so it's this Viking slaving...
But sorry,
I want to talk about the Russian...
So what I was saying is the Russian orthodoxy
I think they have a very different relationship to suffering
than Protestants and Catholics, right?
So Catholics, obviously, they spill some milk.
Oh my God!
They're hysterical.
They're absolutely hysterical.
They can't be controlled.
They can't hold down a job because they're crying all the time.
We've got Finn back onto stereotypes and we're happy.
It's like he's got like a dummy in his mouth.
They won't stop crying, shrieking, calling for them,
Mama!
You know, they're not, they can't work because they're crying all the time.
Protestants,
they understand that suffering will happen and there's a stoicism to it and they will write yes
life is going to be hard sometimes but you get through it and that's you know Russians the
Russian orthodoxy teaches that actively embracing suffering is where revelation is so it's not
just about coping it's about throwing yourself into it it's the spice of life it's yeah suffering is
the spice of life that's literally the Russian mentality and it's also it's not about as individual
stoicism. It's about collectively
throwing yourself into a masquerave
for the good of... They think that's how they'll be
redeemed. This is brilliant. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, it's built for the kind of climate
therein as well. That's it and the constantly
being invaded, which we're going to get into.
Weirdly, they have quite like
a modern self-helpie
mentality. Like all of the TikToks
that are about, you know,
masculinity and take control. They're quite
like Gogginsy in some ways.
In some ways, yeah. And that's why the Great
Northern War, which will do another episode on it,
some point, which is where Peter the Great comes in. That is a kind of rare war that's just
the super Protestant Lutheran Swedes versus the Russian Orthodox. And it's quite interesting
seeing both of their views of suffering, smashing into each other. But we'll get there.
So it's a Viking slaving people already quite fucked up, right? Very backwards. It's kind of
on the fringes of Europe. At this point, not much is going on is just probably a terrifying,
lawless place
right it's very much
in the same way
you have the wild west
it's the wild east
right
and then to make it
even more fucked up
the Mongols
invade
colonize it
right take it over
and then it splits off
into the Golden Horde
which is one of the
four parts of the Mongol Empire
when it all starts falling down
and basically they're allowed
to keep their identity
they just have to give tribute up
right and so they get a lot
of Mongol kind of
culture starts coming in
to their some more asiatic sort of stuff right and eventually basically one of them stands up
in 1480 to the mongles and this is seen as kind of the beginning of like russia standing up for
itself right and then out of this comes ivan the terrible in 1530 who's kind of the beginning of like
the idea of a saar of a united russia does he call himself the terrible no right it's not
it's not like a rap name no evander terrabal evander terribal but it's a quite a weird moniker
Because there's other terribles, aren't there?
Yeah.
Yeah, I feel some people, I think he also could be called Ivan the Great by some people.
So it's kind of like, he's kind of sort of like a Thatcher figure.
It's great.
Thatcher the terrible Thatcher the Great.
Yeah, why don't we do that?
Why don't we do that?
It's much better.
What was the last The Great?
I guess you could say Churchill could have the Great.
Blair the Great.
No, but the problem is.
We need to have more The Great.
The problem is that since Blair, right, and obviously Blair is incredibly divisive,
since Blair, every politician
is just kind of like
so it would be like
Starm of the boring
Starma them yeah
yeah
yeah
trust the thick
Sunnack the short
yeah
Brown the blind
I mean we should call our
Prime Ministers
yeah it'd be more fun
much more than just
the Terrell and the Great
David Dimmobie
for people have spoken
they've elected
Brown Brown the Blind
Miliband the fat-tonged
they've elected them to office
that's loads of fun
yeah
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taxes extra. So Ivan the Terrible,
what does he do? So he's
kind of, he calls himself Tsar,
which is a play on Caesar, right?
Oh, is it? He says that Moscow
is going to be the third Rome.
Because recently, only like 40
years ago, Constantinople fell to the
Ottomans. Yes. So the first Rome
has felt fallen to Catholicism, right?
Constantinople's fallen to Islam.
And so he's now pitching them
as the centre of true Christianity.
So let's just go through the Rome's.
First Rome.
Rome.
Constantinople.
Third Rome, Moscow.
He's saying Moscow.
Fourth Rome is what?
Hitler's Berlin?
Yeah, I guess so.
Fifth Rome is, where's the current Rome?
Where's current Rome?
I mean, whole city of culture,
when was that?
When's it whole?
Is it like the city of culture
which you like get it every year?
even if you're a shit hole.
Yeah, so city of culture is,
they give it to the shitter's place.
So that is like a,
it's a participation medal,
right.
It's like a,
we'll pay you money to be less shit.
Yeah,
it's getting most improved
in the under 14Ds.
Is it literally that.
So when people are boasting,
oh, we're city of culture.
It's like, yeah,
that means you're fucked.
Hold on,
very interesting breaking news.
Sorry,
Charlie's just got it.
A whole woman,
this is this during city of culture.
Yeah.
The whole woman's,
this is how they got it?
A whole woman's been banned
from defecating in public places.
Wait,
is that because the new rules
brought in by the city of culture. Or is it, but they had to clean the house before they got awarded
City of Culture. And her name is Brace Hull. Brace Hull. Brace. Brace. Brace. And that
just squeezed it up. But her surname's Hull and she lives in Hull. Right. So she must
love it up there. Yeah. I mean, you can read defecate in public as two things. It's either
things have gone terribly wrong or it's a celebratory mood. Yeah. It's sort of like an England
flame with a fair up their eyes. It's like, I fucking love it here. It's a date, date, day not in
hole lay me down and shit on my chest um so uh ivan the terrible but claims itself to sarah whole
russia yeah the kind of beginning of this kind of the sars being this kind of controlling thing
of a true russian entity uh and he does a lot of great things at early doors right he starts
the eastward expansion because at this point it's quite a small state right in eastern europe
he starts that kind of endless eastern expansion that every rule towards asia you mean yeah
yeah just because you're even even looking at a map you you don't really
I've always wondered how the fuck did they get that much land.
It's not really talked about.
Well, I guess it's not prime real estate, isn't it?
There's just nothing there.
What happened is that they just keep going.
They'd be like, yeah, I guess we'll just keep going.
Yeah.
And just nothing blocked them at all.
There was no one there's stopping.
They just kept going and kept going.
And the people changed.
That's what's funny.
What?
Well, then you get to like Asians.
Yeah.
So they keep walking.
Yeah, it's still Russia.
And you go, is it?
Well, it's like a DJ mixing.
Yeah.
Fading two songs into each other.
Yeah.
You have white of the white.
And then you end up.
with Koreans.
So you have Dolly Parton
fading into gay
K-pop.
Yeah, yeah.
Working nine to five.
I don't know any
K-pop.
I don't know any songs.
You can tell.
Oh no, hang on.
It'd be like,
working nine to five.
What a,
um,
Gangnam style.
That is.
Yeah, that's Russia.
That's the journey
of traveling through Siberia.
Yeah.
Except it's not working nine to five.
It's working nine to midnight
and then sleeping for two hours
and having some boiled cabbage
and getting back to it.
killing your kids.
It's killing your kids.
It's fucking brutal.
And then how he got Ivan the Terrible is he was obviously very bad to his people near
the end.
He lost his head of love.
Yeah, he was pretty naughty.
He loved impaling people with spikes.
He loved live flaying and he'd do it himself.
He did rat torture where rats were forced to burrow into victims' bodies.
Right.
So he'd starve rats into the point that the only way they could get out is burrowing through them.
I imagine that's, I mean, Charlie does that as his sex clubs, I imagine.
I mean, he had a lot of very Berlin sex club vibes.
Like he'd love.
time people up in like a house
and then just chucking bombs at it
he absolutely loved that
anyway so this guy even though I think he's quite
a good guy he ends up killing his own son
in a rage
he had anger problems I feel
like Marvin Gay
yeah
yeah
they're both artists
in many ways
so he kills his own son
a raise which causes the succession
crisis
which ends up with the Romanovs
this is the beginning of the
Romanov disney, which is in what, the 17th century?
No, no. It will be late 1,500s.
But then I remember when we get up to Tsar Nicholas II, they celebrate the 300-year dynasty, isn't it, the Romanoff?
1613. 1613. Oh, I guess so. Wow. So this is a, what, the Russian revolution, when we get to it,
this is the end of a 300-year dynasty that starts. Which starts here, and it starts because Ivan the
terrible killed his own son. And the way that the Romanovs come in, basically, it's like,
no one knows he's going to be king. So they end up choosing the grandson of Ivan the
Terrell's first wife, Anastasia Romanov.
Yeah.
He ends up being there, basically, because he just, he has the best claim to the throne,
and he's pissed the least people off.
Right.
And that's how this 300-year dynasty kicks off.
We'll skip through a lot of stuff, but basically Peter the Great in 1672 is born,
and he begins Russia as a imperial empire, basically.
The Russian Empire is born with him.
He travels Europe and tries to modernize this very backwards country, right?
Yeah, because he sees, he sees.
sees Europe and then he sees Russia and he realizes that they're all thick. He travels Europe, notably
Amst them in London and he's amazed by all the technology. He goes in disguise and goes through
all of Europe and learns a lot and basically says we need to modernise. Also, Russia, though it's
massive, at this point, is entirely landlocked. Right. That's partly what's keeping it so
backward, right? Much like, yeah. Yeah. There's no, there's no roots in. Massive but landlocked.
So in land, one in the Great Northern War against the Protestant Swedes, on the corner of the
Baltic builds a planned city, St. Petersburg, right?
And this is an inhospitable bog on a frozen wasteland, really nasty piece of land,
but it's like a port.
And he decides to build this grand European city.
No one wants to move there.
It's like, you know, when Channel 4 moved to Leeds.
Yes.
He tries to move all of his intelligency there.
He builds it with serfs at gunpoint, right?
Right.
And surfs are slaves?
Serfdom.
Yes, there's certain, like,
It's like a peasant slave where you're kind of a slave to the land, right, in a way.
The land, the land, yeah, you're owned by the land.
Okay.
And the person who owns the land, of course.
So, yeah, you're, so I mean, but if you were a serf, and someone was like, no, you're not a slave, you're a serf, he'd be like, what's the, he'd be like, he'd be like,
and you'd be like, exactly, that's why you're a serf.
Yeah, so serfdoms all over Russia and stays in, like kind of the feudal system stays,
in Russia maybe like 300, 400, 400 years longer than anywhere else in Europe.
And this is part of the, part of the thing we're coming to is that Russia is much more
backward than anywhere in Europe for a lot longer than Europe.
Not longer.
Even they have lots of modernisers who come in.
Each SAR undoes the thing that the last Saar does.
Yeah, it's very much.
You have Peter the Great, you have Catherine the Great, but then you'll have someone
else come in because huge parts of the Russian spirit and a lot of the kind of contrast is
always, do we stick to our Slavic traditional roots, which separate us from Europe,
We're not those basically gay Europeans.
Yeah.
It's kind of a lot of that.
And you still see that in Putin's Russia today.
A lot of it is like, we are standing up for the Orthodox Russian identity.
You know when he was talking about how he, Putin did that whole thing about being cancelled, right?
And that cancel cultures come for him as well.
Right.
And he wanted to actually be a stand against the wokeness of Europe.
What, by invading Ukraine?
Partly.
Well, did he get cancelled for invading Ukraine?
He got cancelled just because he stands up for traditional kind of values.
Such a profuse.
in the podcast.
But not but I mean
it's interesting
that he's pitched himself
as the anti-woke guy
that Europe has collapsed
because they let gay people live
Well he's got less space
to maneuvered isn't he
He can't really come out now
As like
Favorite gay rights
Obviously he's got like a big grip on Russia
Do you think if a video came out of him
Getting pegged by like a trans
Fat
Teenager
You know what that
That would really undermine the image
Because he's got such an amazing
Like, there's nothing he can do
brutality-wise that will get him off the throne
because it just adds to his aura.
Yeah.
If it came out that he was just like,
he was beating the shit out of gay people in his cellar,
he'd be like, well, yeah.
Yeah, that's why I vote for him.
But if it came out that those gay people were pegging him,
then that changes everything.
If it was a video that got shown of Putin being pegged
by a fat trans teenager,
then everyone comes in the next day and he's like, right,
what are we doing?
And everyone's like,
oh.
And he's loving it.
in the video he's like he's loving it
he's loving it
I think him loving it is the real problem
he's like oh
yeah but but then again this is my
the problem with the Russian Orthodox
as to suffering is that people would be like
this is a great man
who's suffering is quite Russian Orthodox I guess
is it I guess it's somewhere the suffering
yeah kind of pleasure from being
from the suffering yeah it's self-flagelladulation
it's G spot up the ass
it's yeah eating you can only find
true pleasure in the meaning of suffering.
Enlightenment is being pegged.
Yeah, I don't know how to answer that really.
It's a bit of a hypothetical history.
Yeah, what if?
One of the great counterfactuals.
What if, what if he said of Peter the Great?
It was Peter the Pegger, and he'd been pegged to shit.
Yeah.
That was the right founding myth of St. Pegger's Berg.
St. Pegger's Gras.
St. Pegger's Bum.
His brilliant city on the lake.
St. Pegger's Bum.
So basically, St.
Petersburg is the most important city in this story.
And you can't really have the Russian Revolution the same way without the kind of...
It all happens.
It all happens.
Yeah, and quite the unique nature of St. Petersburg as a city.
It's built on this frozen waste land that no one wants to live on, but it's an extraordinary
city.
I've been to St. Petersburg.
Of course you have.
Of course.
And it's this amazing, beautiful city that kind of looks like Paris, but it's also got
this kind of New York grid system.
So it's got these huge roads, but incredible houses.
But then it also has those kind of Asiatic domes on it as well.
Amazing city.
but it's built at gunpoint by serfs 100,000 people die building it.
100,000?
Yeah, it's literally built on the bones of peasants.
So it's this beautiful city that's emerged out of the frozen wasteland,
literally built on Russian bones.
Bones, up the bums.
Up the bums.
Yep, and for like the first kind of like 40 or so years,
wolves still roam the streets because it's such a wild part of the world.
Yeah.
But somehow emerges is this beautiful city.
It's kind of the center of European.
in Russia. It's quite a European
It's a westward facing city. Exactly.
And that's also part of the tension between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Moscow sees itself as the real Russia, St. Petersburg.
They say there's a lot of gay guys in there, you know, doing fruity stuff.
Not in some Pegasbump.
There's a lot of fruity guys in St. Pegasbott.
But then whenever a European visit St. Petersburg, they're like,
these are the most wild feral people.
I'm getting pegged to shit.
This is better than Berlin, man.
You think Berlin's hot.
You want to go to some, you think Berlin's hot. You want to go some Pegasbump.
So look, let's get, look, we've been chatting for a while.
You've been rolling around in your communist pig shit.
Let's get to the meat of this story, which I reckon we should start just after the Crimean War, which kind of shows up.
Decembrous revolt?
You want to do that?
I don't care what that is.
Okay.
Let's start with, I don't know, there's going to be so many revolts.
Let's start with the aftermath of the Crimean War, where Russia, the sort of great game between Britain and Russia, it exposes Russia's weakness on the international stage.
and so there is a reformist czar comes in called Alexander II
who is Nicholas II's grandfather I believe
Alexander the 2nd emancipates the serfs
He ends slavery
Emancipation
You're now on your land
The serfs are running around Russia
So serfs are no longer slaves
Surf and turf
Surf are emancipated from the turf
The surf and turf.
So, but, and this is one of the great things about researching this topic is that I got to listen to Anthony Beaver Waddle on for a while.
I do love him.
Big up the Beavs.
Big up the Beavs.
I'm a big fan of Beaver.
I've always said that.
Anthony Bevo.
Anthony Bevo.
You know the rules.
You know the rules.
Imagine if it turned out Bevo was related to Anthony Beaver.
What a disowned son.
Yeah.
Anthony Beaver's grandson.
is Bivo on TikTok.
Anyway, Bivo Stalingrad is a very different book.
Bivo grad.
I think we should make cities named after Bivo.
Bivo,
we just try and swallow Stalingrad by Anthony Biver in one go.
Listen, right.
So what Anthony Biver says is that one of the large problems
with the surf being emancipated by and a second
is that it's not freedom in that you're forced to buy
the land you're working on, which means you're
immediately in debt. So this
huge class of people that have been freed
from slavery, I've now just been put
into another form of slavery where they owe
the government money. Brilliant, I'm free.
Oh, I'm a fucking slave. So I've got to work this to pay off
the debt, right? Yeah, so you don't pay them anything
because they're slaves. You free them for being slaves
and now you're saying, what can you afford to buy this land?
No, I'm no money. Well, then you have to
work for it. Yeah, exactly. You're basically
enslaved or you can afford it. Yeah.
Are you going to pay me enough to afford it? No.
Of course not.
so it's slavery under another name
I mean this is in the 1800s as well
so this is a
if we're talking about the Russian mentality
right so this is when Dostoevsky's writing
a lot of this time right
yeah so I mean what I've been watching
on TikTok right
what's happened recently
is that the Dostoevskian
very Russian idea of morality
has been made into sort of motivational TikToks
this gets you going
this gets me fired up
so this is your like
my equivalent is watching like a Nuremberg rally
yeah yeah
This is a good way of understanding
where the Russian mind is at.
This is in the mid-1800s,
a period of early industrialization,
the emancipation of the serfs,
but there's still what Doski-Efs he's writing about.
Tolstoy, for example,
is writing about social realism.
He's trying to empathize with the serfs,
trying to bring their stories to light.
Dostoevsky is basically saying,
Russia's getting too gay.
European hedonism is decaying
the great Russian spirit.
it um and then you can see why and is a creature of suffering and suffering is his greatest desire
oh he will curse it spit upon it cry out to the heavens that he wishes for peace for salvation
but the moment you strip him of his torment what does he become a battened beast lying idle in
the field rotting in the sun no he will return to suffering to chaos
because in pain there is motion and in motion life without suffering without struggle
without the gnawing hunger of despair a man who is nothing a man who never was
right that sums up perfectly doesn't it without suffering there is nothing so yeah i mean
my girlfriend has very all of her ticotts are basically saying nothing's ever your fault
they're very like that's what all female it's like just take a day off yeah what you've worked too
hard. You deserve it. You deserve it. And all of my TikToks, I'm lying at bed saying,
only in Tateen is their truth. All my Ticot's
get taken down. Do they? For hate speech. What, do you come back to them?
I come back. Yeah. All of your safe folder of TikTok is just bad, bad, just gone. Ban,
ban, removed, removed. This is Nazism. But anyway, um, with the emancipation of the
serfs and the kind of growing, uh, revolutionary movements, you know, Marx is writing
and industrialised London
and with industrialisation
comes a lot of these
kind of new revolutionary theories
for a changing world right
and there's kind of early forms revolution
come from this
the Naroddinik movement
which is this kind of
which I guess kind of
feels sort of relevant today
it's like this intelligentsia uni
movement right
of people talking about how
the future rushes the peasants right
they believe that the true rushes
the peasants be to really like
do a revolt
that frees the peasants
and then a lot of these
kind of posh uni kids
go and live
and work with the peasants
get the peasants like
get the police to kill
a lot of them as well
Yeah because of the most annoying
cunts you know
white kids going to Rwanda
and building a school
there's all these people saying
no the true Russia's the peasant
the peasants like
who the fuck are these fruits
fucking gay boys from St.
Bumbersburg
some Bummersgrad what's it called
some Pegasbub
don't come to here
tell me how to live
from some Pegasbub
but this is
this is the great moment right
in that
so I
talking about Dostoevsky
and Tolstoy I've not really read
I tried to read Tolstoy once
interrailing and I ended up just
I used to
Who are you interrailing?
No I was going through
I'm interrailing women
I must stress out
I'm completely straight
I don't like this fruity communist history
I was interrailing through Europe
and I ended up
the main thing I remember about Tolstoy
War in peace is that I killed a wasp with it.
Right.
Right.
It's a big book.
Big book.
One hit.
Tolstoy is these great epic narratives, but he does get bogged down in talking in detail about
like land reforms and like, really dry stuff.
But what I was going to say is that the amazing thing about this history is that it is like
a Dostoevsky or a Tolstoy novel in that, you know, we're not even close to the
Ray of Nicholas II, which is where you'd maybe start this topic.
And there are narrative flags in the sand.
that come back later.
So, Alexander...
It feels like every Russian is imbued
with a sense of narrative.
Yeah, impenetrable narrative.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, they're just built with these complicated moral.
Everyone, the choices they make
are so, like, dramatic and operatic.
So Alexander II is assassinated just after...
In 1881.
And his carriage is blown up, right?
Because even though Alexander II
is the great reformer,
it's a lot of these reforms which are not fast enough.
because they're making life easy for people
and the Russians don't want that
they want to be pegged but they die
so they go fuck this guy
this guy's getting rid of suffering
what is a man without suffering
he is nothing so they
he's got an armoured carriage
someone chucks a bomb at it
right blows into shit
well no he crawls out
yeah he's got no legs I think he's got no legs
when he crawls out he crawls out
his legs have to be taken off
and then he gets put into like the palace
and his grandson little
Nicky little soft sweet sensitive
Nicky who ends up being Nicholas's second
he's just been out fucking rollerblading
because he's gay, right?
He's a fruity soul.
He's a fruity soul.
He's been rollerblading like, yeah, yeah, cropped up.
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Then finally his dad's like, listen, mate,
your granddad's dying.
Take those fucking rollerblades off.
Take that dick out your mouth.
Come and say goodbye to your granddad.
Yeah.
Right, he slings his rollerblades over his,
and then he walks in.
And Alexander II,
grandpa is lying there with no legs bleeding out.
Like, oh.
And the Russians are like, oh, I wish I was fucking you.
Oh, God.
You don't know you're born, mate.
bleeding out with no legs
You've never been more alive
He's literally died
I'm jealous
I'm so jealous
At least your life has meaning
Now you've got no legs
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And so Nicholas II
is a young boy
says,
is brought in with his rollerblades
or ice skates or whatever.
I'm not listening to the podcast.
Comes in and he's forced to say goodbye
and like reckon with,
imagine, you know,
I imagine we all have quite similar stories
of saying goodbye to a beloved grandparent.
Right.
It's all quite weepy, weepy, care, home stuff.
Bye, bye, bye, love you, whatever.
Oh, no more, it's good.
No more Eclay's, no more Eclay's, no, night.
He's going into see his granddad's been,
his legs blown off by a fucking anarchist,
and this traumatises him.
100%.
Traumatizing totally.
And builds that lifelong kind of paranoia,
suspicion of revolutionary.
Of anything that's not autocracy.
Yes.
Yeah.
Because then you have his dad, Alexander the third.
Who, in the tradition of just undoing what your dad did,
he comes in with counter measures, right?
intense reaction to the reformist stuff, tightened censorship.
Because also, Alexander II, with his reforms, he relaxed censorship,
which was kind of the beginning of socialism in Russia,
because now a lot of books are flooding in.
Even though it was religiously orthodox,
and as strict on that, no religious texts,
books like Marx could now come into the universities
because they weren't convicted of religious texts.
Yeah, the censors should have banned Marx.
But they didn't realize how powerful the book would be.
They thought, well, this is fucking boring.
He's going to read this.
When Alexander III gets in,
this is another little narrative flag in the sand.
There is an assassination attempt by none other than Lenin's brother.
Sasha, well, they call him Sasha.
Sasha, who is, you know, we'll get to Lenin later in the series,
but very quickly, middle class, comfortable family,
all sort of happy family's domestic bliss.
And then suddenly they find out that their son has been caught up in a plot
to assassinate the Tsar.
and it's all because
he has been
gone to university
he went to uni
and started reading
Karl Marx
and got
Alexander Kuline off
basically Marx is like
is like stealing
young men
he's basically Andrew Tate
Carl Marx
in the young men
are reading him
and getting judged up
and he's comfortable
suddenly they're like
yeah fuck
I want to be top G
I want to fuck the Zah
and that moment
when his older brother
dies
is one of the key
turning points
and he gets hanged
for assassinate
trying to assassinate
Alexander the third
now Alexander
And the third, as you said, he really doesn't like the Jews.
Is that fair to say?
100%.
He clamps down on reforms.
There was one Jewish member of the huge group that killed his father.
And so they said, well, it's definitely all of the Jews for.
And throughout this story, so Jewish pogroms, we often talk about Nazis.
Because of the Holocaust, it kind of takes a lot of the narratives about Jewish massacres.
But the pogroms were fucking, basically every time something wrong in Russia happened, which is all the time,
they would use that as an excuse.
If the Holocaust was a symphony,
the pogroms are a guitar solo.
Terrifyingly feral, unleashed, ACDC.
You're going to go see the pogroms later?
Yeah, yeah.
You know, tearing through the streets,
it's like the worst England fans abroad in Marseille,
garden chairs everywhere,
get out your cafes, Jews, go home,
all that kind of stuff.
So, yeah, there's a lot of violent pogroms
and the government were like, yeah,
you do you, this is your business.
Jews were limited to the pale of settlement
which is the small slither of land
So we get to Nicholas II
Now he is a young wet
He's a boy of St Pegger's bum
Yes
He you know you can take the boy out of St Pegger's bum
But you can't take the peg out of the bum
He's a young sort of effete
Little weak boy
And he's not been trained
To become Tsar
Because he's 21
His dad's only 49
they've got time to train him up
and his dad is like this guy's
fucking who cares
this guy's a little wet squib
but then suddenly
because his dad is such a hard drinking
Russian
like lad
he just immediately dies of a heart attack
I think
which is the common theme
throughout his liver failure
he dies with his liver just packs up
royal lines you have the alpha dad
with the cuck son
and that seems to happen
with royal lines so much
yeah the kind of more alpha the daddy
the more cuck the sonny
yeah and so he just
He just fucking corks it at what, 49-50, something like that.
And so what, Nicholas II comes to the road at 1894?
How old is he when he comes to the throne?
22, I believe.
And to show as a kind of omen of what's to come,
to celebrate Nicholas II coming to the throne,
they say, we're going to give free gifts and food and celebration to, you know.
The coronation.
To, yeah.
It's free bread.
It's coronation chicken, you know, stuff like that.
Oh, God.
I fucking love coronation.
But they said there's only a limited amount.
Don't you?
What?
I love coronation chicken.
Oh, do you?
Do you not like coronation chicken?
Yeah, yeah, I do quite like it.
I bet you'd like you'd like you'd say it so it's, oh, it's, I'm, it's monochist fair.
I want to beauched.
Raisins, got raisins in it.
Yeah, I love it.
I think a baguette with coronation chicken is actually really nice.
No, you'd like, uh, you'd like, uh, you'd like a, what, a borsh out of a cabbage.
You'd like Revolution borsh.
Yeah, there we go.
Just wet cabbage.
Throw that.
Throw that, throw that at the king.
But basically, he said that, he said that, he said there's only a limited amount of food,
right?
Yeah.
So then everyone turns up super early.
500,000 people turn up because they're so hungry, right?
And then there's a stampede, a 1,300 people die.
It's like Russian Hillsborough.
Yeah, exactly.
But then they're like brilliant.
For them, it's like a celebration.
It's like a carnival because 1,300 people died.
They're like brilliant.
Well, that's less than normal.
Well, yeah, but it's also like that lucky them.
They must be alive.
Of course.
Yeah, everyone's dead.
The stampede is to who gets to die.
Yes, of course.
Everyone is fighting to be trampled.
Because their life only has meaning of,
there, it's trampled to death, looking for bread.
And people dying,
we're lucky few.
Yeah.
And then Nick and second attends a ball that night, which is bad.
He's celebrating all the people dying.
Exactly.
Because that's the only way that anything means anything.
But he marries Queen Victoria, God rest to her soul,
minute silence for Queen Victoria.
Gone but not forgotten.
I love you wherever you are.
He marries Queen Victoria's granddaughter, I think.
But everyone in the aristocracy in Europe is one of Victoria's grandchildren.
That's true.
She has hundreds of granddaughters.
This one has got some, is pretty ill.
She probably have nowadays, you'd call it like Emmy or something.
She's just chronically ill, but she's quite fit, by all accounts.
Yeah.
But she doesn't, she's German.
A Hessian.
She's a Hessian.
Right.
She's not a sack.
Yeah.
She's from Hess.
Yeah.
And they fall in love, her and Nicholas, and they write disgusting love letters.
Do you know this?
No.
So they write love letters to each other, and they have nicknames for each other's genitals.
What's the nickname?
names. Right. So she calls her as lady. Right. And his is Boisey. Stick his boise in her
lazy. I don't think they say it like that. I think they say things like, what's his ass
called? Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. How's Daddy today? Daddy's bad. Well, how about you try and find out
how daddy is? When you shut boys up, Daddy, leave me alone. Or is it grandpa? Pay grandpa a visit
before he dies. Yes. No, you've got to pay the piper. You got to pay the piper. And then she
would call her periods the military
engineer. Really? Yeah. Yeah.
Which is lovely, isn't it? Where did you find this?
This is on Empire. Right.
Yes, so they would write, they'd write letters to each other, and they'd like, you know,
they were in love because they'd write this disgusting tweet. You know, they probably called
when Boisey meets Lady. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Figgie pudding or something's gross like that.
But they'd say, how's Boise is they in? And he replied, Boise is ready.
Boys is always ready. And then she'd say, ladies out of action. Ladies,
really? The military engineers. The military is.
the military
lady's
bloodbath
cunt's fucked
she says
sorry Nicholas
cunts fucked
my cunt's fucked
how's Boise
yeah boys's ready
well my cunt's fucked
so Boise's got
to just play by himself
but my point was to say
like sex thing
has really gone downhill
hasn't it
it's got so gross now
there's no kind of
twee
there's no literature to it anymore
there's no literacy to sexing
well if you're sexting
it's normally quite spur of the moment
while you're horny just going
I feel the letter, the writing it
having to get the wax seal
like that hand it to someone else to send for you
you have to really consider your horniness
yeah because you can't write
fuck my fuck my cunt till it bleeds
seal
yeah because you're gonna read it through and go
well that's a bit that's a bit rich
cross that out
yeah cross that out
lady why doesn't boys he play
pay lady a visit
disgusting because what's rare about these two
is that they are truly in
love, which for like, I don't know, political marriages.
I'm not a fan of.
No, not at all.
Normally these marriages are forced together and they're deeply unhappy.
These guys do truly love each other.
Boys, he's hard for lady.
Yeah.
Lady's dripping wet, frothing at the mouth.
Nicholas's heads so buried in the Saurina's muff.
Lady, please.
Please.
Respect the lady.
He rarely comes up for air and misses what's going on around the country, which is,
basically Russia has industrialized in the space of like 40 years as opposed to the space of 200 years
so it's skipped a lot of stages yes so this sort of jarring lurch forward
means that uh revolutions in the air basically because it's it's not happened gradually or
naturally it's become unhinged it's not it's it's eking at the scenes and nicholas the second is
a complete autocrat there is no politics is allowed like there's no there's nothing um so any
any like party is forbidden
so they have to do it all in secret.
Nicola, to be a czar,
like you have to be prime minister,
president, monarch,
and field marshal all in one go.
Wash the kits, clean the boots.
You've got to do everything.
Cut up the oranges for the boys.
Like, it's everything in one go,
and he is so completely unprepared for it
because his head is stuck up Alexander's muff or whatever.
What's his wife called?
Alexandra.
Alexander's stinky old lady.
And blah, blah, blah.
He's awful, he's terrible, but...
Something that really starts to put one of the first nails in his coffin
is he wants to expand colonially out in the east into Manchuria,
which is kind of northern China at the far reach of the Russian Empire.
But this is at the beginning of who I can't wait to an episode on,
the kind of beginning of the Japanese empire.
So Japan, who have come out of isolation,
have gone around the world and studied...
are turning into the psychopaths they become in World War II.
Yeah.
And this is a really important moment actually in the shift in kind of colonial politics in many ways.
They start a war over parts of Manchuria kind of career called the Russo-Japanese war.
And basically the Japanese, who everyone underestimates, because they're not white.
Yes.
Fuck the Russians up, the disorganized Russians.
And this is such a true humiliation.
I mean, you think about who loves suffering more, Russians versus Japanese.
Yeah.
I mean, how that war even ends
in anything other than both sides
killing themselves.
I don't understand.
Well, they're slightly different.
Russia's suffering is more like
this is my personal journey
with suffering,
whereas the Japanese suffering
is about politeness and respect.
Yeah.
Japanese suffering is because I respect you
and I don't want to disrespect you,
I'm going to kill myself.
Yes.
Like this is a racist sketch
that I can't do,
but I wanted to do,
I'd love to do a sketch
of,
kind of moving to Tokyo
and trying to make friends
but every time any minor
inconvenience happens
they Harry Kiri themselves
so you can't build a friend group
because it'd be like
you know they might accidentally
spill a drink on you
like no it's fine it's fine
I am so sorry
I cannot build any race shit
because at any moment
they're just waiting
they're just waiting
to disrespect you
so they can kill themselves
my stagdo has gone
the numbers are dropping
so the Rossos
is a huge humiliation
because the first time
in a proper war
a non-white power
has beaten a white power
since the colonial age, right?
And it's kind of changing
all the stuff
he talks about eugenics, right?
This goes, flies in the face of it, right?
Because the whites all seem at the top.
It's anti-science.
It's the result of this war makes no sense.
It's anti-intellectual.
It's a disgrace.
So it ruins morale
and it's also very costly
and so famines are starting
because people are starving.
People are always hungry.
But they are always starving.
For example,
I was reading about the Russian Revolution.
to my sister who was saying things like
about Putin it's like I think
you know the tide in Russia's going to change for Putin because it's
like economically getting really tough and I'm like
at what point in
Russia's entire history yeah has it
not been economically tough for the people
they love it they fucking love it's
it's when people talk about you know
you even see articles saying oh you know the Russian economy's
going down maybe they're going to turn on Putin this
they could go so much further
this isn't scraping the
this isn't touching the surface
they fucking love it yeah they want it up their ass
No, fucking, when was the golden age?
When was the...
There's never been a golden age of Russia.
It's just one long, shitty trough.
The entire thing is they're just going with a curly straw.
Oh, they love nothing more than having the shit kicked out of them.
There's never been, in Russia's history, a democratic transition of power.
No.
Never.
Not once.
Yeah.
No one's ever been allowed to buy more than one loaf of bread at one time in Russia.
And they love it.
if anyone
they see anyone
with two sticks
of bread
they go
you fucking what are you
gay
yeah
what are you gonna
what are you gonna do
what are you gonna do the other
show it up your ass
you want to go
live in St Peggy Bum
Charlie's got to
skull up a montage
of the giant
giant Russian cabbage
competition
I mean this is what
these guys do
for fun
yeah
you know
they're eating cabbage
which is
you know
cabbage is probably
the most
boring
vegetable
yeah
you know for all
it's massive
flavorless
but bitter
yeah
and beetroot
just
But beetroot taste of mud.
And these people are putting them into soups
and that's a good day
for these people.
You can't eat cabbage and beetroot.
Yeah.
Oh, you don't have a Russian salad.
Oh, fucking hell.
Russian salad is grim.
It's like diced like cucumber and mayonnaise, basically.
Yeah, but and just vinegar.
And part of the reason why the Russian cuisine is the way it is
is because it's basically landlocked, doesn't know, sea.
Everything is kind of tinned.
Pickled.
Yeah.
It's a pickled people.
So the Russian-Japanese war,
It's been a disaster.
The Tsar is autocratic and yet weak.
There's a great quote.
There's nothing worse than an autocracy without an autocrat.
Yeah.
So it's a big cuck at the top.
And in 1905 in January, a massive protest that happens.
So Father Georgie Gapner, Russian Orthodox priest,
leads a peaceful protest in Senate Square in St. Peter's Bum.
Demanding's Bum.
So at St. Peggy's Bum, sorry, because the name keeps changing.
Yes, but not yet.
Yeah.
So it like, it changed on St.
Peggy's bum to say up the R-C
You know, it depends
So Peggy's bum sounds too German
And when the World War I breaks out
They go, we can't have a city called St, Pegasbaum
That's obviously what the Germans are doing all the time
We'll have to call it Peggergrad
We call it Peggy Dad
We can't call it Pegger Dad, a Russian name
Ely's peaceful protest to demand free speech
And a constitutional government like they have in Europe
And he's actually, he's still pros are this guy
Like he views the Saar still as this
The Little Father, which is the kind of view of
Because the relationship between the Tsar and the Russian people as well, which goes back to Ivan the terrible, which links to Putin's, you know, they actually view the reason why there is still some love for the Tsar is a way of getting around bureaucracy.
There's a direct relationship between the leader and the people.
And because they have a suspicion of the kind of bureaucrats who might corrupt things, having one person who can...
Bureaucracy gets in the way of suffering.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I want to suffer now.
want someone to just shoot me in the head. I don't want to be a debate about how I get shot. I want
to die now. So he's asking for like the eight hour working day. That's a big thing because it's like
12, 13 hours. Yeah, because it's also factories have just come in. So a lot of these kind of workers
rights, they haven't really like worked this stuff through. No. 12 hour days, you know, no right
to unionize, all this sort of stuff. And then this is the original bloody Sunday, I guess.
Is this the first bloody Sunday? We've been so many bloody Sunday.
A grand series, you found out, there is a different bloody day of the whole week.
But when was the first Bloody Sunday?
I think it might be, yeah.
I think it's the first.
Okay, the first ever Bloody Sunday.
Yeah.
And, you know, it works like most Bloody Sundays.
It's a Sunday.
But actually, it's not, is it?
Because they're on the wrong calendar.
Yeah, they're on the Julian character.
So they're about a few days out.
Yeah.
I think they're on the God, what one is two.
So the problem is all of the movements and moments are named after months and dates.
February revolution, October revolution.
you know the October manifesto all this sort of stuff
but they're all wrong because it's a different calendar
so it's very confusing
it is very confusing and basically yeah
the soldiers massacre
it's a massive protest and then the Cossacks come in
and they just start impaling, shooting
a peaceful protest
peaceful protest and in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday
the Tsar is kind of forced in to make
some constitutional reforms
right I reckon we should leave this here
we've been chatting a long old time
now one thing before we go
we must say that while this is all happening
the Tsar has been shoving Boise up lady
like nobody's business
Boise's been shoved down that
colossal mine and
they've had four daughters
four terrible ugly daughters
which is not what you need
you need a son
and finally in 1904
a son
a beautiful baby boy
is born Alexi
Nicolaevich but
he's just 11 days old
when he starts bleeding from the navel.
You lucky boy.
You, oh my God.
Ospicious.
A gift from God, a son who just bleeds out of his belly.
Now, this is obviously terrifying,
and he has been cursed with the terrible wife's genes of hemophilia.
They don't know what to do, and so they start looking.
Sounds too similar to hebofilia.
It's not.
Which is the paedophiles who go for 12 to 15.
12 to 15.
So, sorry, he's not a heapophile.
He's a hemophile, which means if you cut him, he can't stop bleeding.
Yeah.
It's not, if you cut me, I fuck 14-year-olds.
Yeah.
It's not that.
That's a different thing.
If you cut me, I bleed pitiful.
I bleed, 14-year-old girls.
I'm a pido till I die.
There's not a lot of that sort of stuff going on.
No, he's not a paedophile or a heaphyl.
He's a hemophiliac.
Anyway, that his parents start looking around for anything to help keep this boy alive.
The life expectancy of a hebo-a-phile, I mean, a hema-phal is not
good actually.
Right.
If you get banged up for it,
you know,
your only hope is it.
What is it?
What is it?
Hemophilia.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's clotting.
Nor blood clad.
Nor blood clatting.
Yeah.
He's got no dirty blood clats.
Right.
This boy.
His body doesn't form them.
Yeah.
So, um,
plotted blood like clotted cream.
Yes, there's no clotted blood.
Oh, I love strawberries.
And clotted blood.
Well, there's clotted blood on the scones.
It'd be lovely.
Yeah.
Scons, strawberry jam and cream clad.
So anyway, they start.
looking around for anyone to help keep this boy alive because the life expectancy is not much
more than 13 in the day and age three before. And in our next episode, we will deal with
the mad monk. The man, the myth, the legend. Rasputin. Rasputin. Now, Rastclad Poulton. It's
basically Pouss me with dreadlocks. It's the Rass-clad Poulton. Rast-Claught Poulton.
Yeah. Hello. I'm not Poutine. I'm Rass-clad Poulting. Yeah. That's what
And it does kind of look like Putin with sort of dreadlocks in the way.
Yeah, I guess so.
Yeah, Rasklat Putin comes in to this story.
He's Putin a holiday in Jamaica.
We've got to end this episode.
Rasklap Putin will deal with next time.
Now, every episode of this series, it could be five, it could be six, we don't know yet.
That's already on the Patreon.
You can join for three pounds a month and get early access to series as well as a bonus episode.
And we just did our first ever live stream episode as well.
So there's lots of fun over there.
But either way, we will see you next time for the next chapter in this.
epic story of Revolution and Gary Stevenson and her ass clad Putin. See you next time.
